Lab Report On Duckweed
The effect of crowding on Duckweed growth rate.
Sarah Morscheck*, Olivia Drukker, Hannah Zeigerson, and Jacob Shaffer
Methods: To test the effect of population density on Duckweed growth rate, we obtained 24 clear, clean, plastic cups and added 100 ml of artificial pond water. There were 8 cups in each treatment, high density had 100 thali, medium density had 50 thali, and low density had 10 thali. The cups were randomly placed on a tray. The thali were counted and then rearranged every Monday, Wednesday, Friday for 7 total changes. Water levels were topped off each visit. The cups were rotated middle to sides and front row to back row. To dispose of the Duckweed, we poured them down the drain with plenty of water. A two-way ANOVA was run …show more content…
We initially thought that the duckweed with less population density would have the larger growth rate, we in fact saw the opposite. The duckweed with the highest population density. The mean growth rate of the high density duckweed was the highest of the three, while the medium density duckweed had the second highest mean growth rate. The lowest density duckweed had a very small mean growth rate. It was interesting, some of the thali grew at large rates while others barely grew. There was more difference between some cups in the same density than there was between different densities. We did not see the results we had expected. At the beginning of our research we read that high population density had a decreasing growth rate while the medium population density had the highest growth rate (Driever et al. 2005). Another study showed similar results to that of Driever et al., in this study the effects of nickle were also studied (Demirezen et al. 2007). A further investigation into this topic, could be how duckweed processes toxins at different population densities. Based on literature we know that chemicals effect duckweed (Zayed et al. 1998), it would be interesting to see if different densities were able to handle the toxins better or worse. It would also be interesting to see how that effected growth
Sarah Morscheck*, Olivia Drukker, Hannah Zeigerson, and Jacob Shaffer
Methods: To test the effect of population density on Duckweed growth rate, we obtained 24 clear, clean, plastic cups and added 100 ml of artificial pond water. There were 8 cups in each treatment, high density had 100 thali, medium density had 50 thali, and low density had 10 thali. The cups were randomly placed on a tray. The thali were counted and then rearranged every Monday, Wednesday, Friday for 7 total changes. Water levels were topped off each visit. The cups were rotated middle to sides and front row to back row. To dispose of the Duckweed, we poured them down the drain with plenty of water. A two-way ANOVA was run …show more content…
We initially thought that the duckweed with less population density would have the larger growth rate, we in fact saw the opposite. The duckweed with the highest population density. The mean growth rate of the high density duckweed was the highest of the three, while the medium density duckweed had the second highest mean growth rate. The lowest density duckweed had a very small mean growth rate. It was interesting, some of the thali grew at large rates while others barely grew. There was more difference between some cups in the same density than there was between different densities. We did not see the results we had expected. At the beginning of our research we read that high population density had a decreasing growth rate while the medium population density had the highest growth rate (Driever et al. 2005). Another study showed similar results to that of Driever et al., in this study the effects of nickle were also studied (Demirezen et al. 2007). A further investigation into this topic, could be how duckweed processes toxins at different population densities. Based on literature we know that chemicals effect duckweed (Zayed et al. 1998), it would be interesting to see if different densities were able to handle the toxins better or worse. It would also be interesting to see how that effected growth